"Media and Transparency – A Global Perspective"

‘Fake news’, ‘lying press’, ‘post-truth journalism’: Probably never since the 1970s have publics worldwide debated as intensely about the credibility and accountability of journalism as these days – pointing to a growing concern with the journalistic key values of truthfulness and accuracy.

At the same time, the ongoing economization of practical news work, an aggravated pressure for profits, and ultimately an erosion of journalism’s financial basis, make it necessary to reflect on media performance. How reliable is journalistic information in the age of digital media? And will algorithms and robot journalism, social or automated forms of communication, make traditional journalism superfluous in the long term?

In the light of these and other technological, economic, and political constraints, it is no surprise that audience trust in journalistic products is under threat. How do journalistic actors across the globe deal with media accountability? Which mechanisms for making media responsible towards the public are currently practiced in different media systems – and which of them have proven to be successful?

The conference “Media and Transparency – a Global Perspective” sets out to analyze and debate models of media accountability in the changing societies of a multipolar world. Following up on the most recent results of our European Handbook of Media Accountability as well as our EU-funded FP7 project Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe, the conference provides insights into the status quo of media transparency in different continents, and sets out to be the starting point for a comparative global research project on media accountability, further contributing to the study of transparency.